


Skill and Hunger

by raininshadows



Category: Hive Mind Series - Janet Edwards
Genre: Backstory, Gen, Unreliable Narrator, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-27
Updated: 2020-03-27
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:02:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23225989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raininshadows/pseuds/raininshadows
Summary: Keith has his first insight into someone else's mind aged ten.He spends the next eight years working to be a true telepath.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8
Collections: Worldbuilding Exchange 2020





	Skill and Hunger

**Author's Note:**

  * For [burglebezzlement](https://archiveofourown.org/users/burglebezzlement/gifts).



Keith was in a park later than he ought to be, because it was that or go home and have to deal with his parents again. This park wasn’t the one closest to his parents’ apartment, but they had some different plants here and it was less likely that he’d run into someone he knew; one of the upsides of getting his tracking bracelet removed earlier that year had been that he didn’t need to deal with his parents being able to find him at any time. He’d gotten into another argument with the teacher that day in school, and he wasn’t up to dealing with another round of Why Can’t You Just Behave. He didn’t behave because there wasn’t any _point_ in behaving; what was it going to do for him anyway, convince Claire that he was actually worth something? Unlikely. 

The sky overhead was transitioning to the moon-and-stars programme, and Keith was contemplating whether he could just stay out here until his parents had gone to sleep, when shouting suddenly broke the quiet of the park. 

A tall man sprinted into the park, followed by at least half a dozen hasties. Moonlight shone off something in the man’s hand for just a second. Keith tried to dodge out of the way, but there wasn’t enough time before the man was upon him. 

Everything went still. The man grabbed him and pressed what was now quite clearly a knife against his throat; the hasties froze, guns still on Stun and pointed at them. And for a second, Keith saw into the man’s mind.

 _He’s scared_ , Keith knew. _He doesn’t want to hurt me, he just thinks it’ll help get him out of this. If I can get the knife away from him…_

His arm came up, shoving the knife away and twisting the man’s wrist until he dropped the blade. As soon as the knife was on the ground, the hasties swarmed the man. 

One of the hasties led him away and got him to sit down on a park bench. “Are you hurt?” she asked gently. “We’ve got medical workers on the way.”

“No,” Keith told her, glaring. “I’m fine.” 

“That’s good,” she said reassuringly. “We’ll still need to check you over, and you’ll need to see a therapist briefly before we send you home.” 

Keith knew what that meant. They were going to reset him. “I already have a therapist,” he snapped. “You can talk to him. He’s trained to reset me too, if that’s what you want.” 

The hasty froze momentarily, then nodded. “All right. May I have your ID number, so I can look him up?”

Keith nodded. “Keith, 2501-0232-348.”

The hasty typed it into her dataview, and after a few seconds, it flashed up what must have been his identity. Her eyes widened for a second as she read his information, and then she looked back up at him. “I’ll notify your therapist, Keith. We’ll have someone come talk to you in a moment, and I’ll send someone to tell your parents where you are so they won’t worry.” 

_Don’t bother,_ Keith almost said. Instead, he just sat still as the hasty walked away. The man who’d attacked him was being taken away now, stunned and restrained. 

He’d seen into the man’s head at that moment, as the man had tried to attack him. He’d had an insight. He was a borderline telepath. 

He’d never be a real telepath. 

It only took a few minutes before a tall, solidly built woman approached him. She was smiling brightly. “Hi, Keith,” she said. “I’m Emma. I just need to check real quick and make sure you didn’t get hurt, and then you can go home.”

Ugh. Home. But Keith knew there was no point in arguing. “Fine. He didn’t hurt me, look.” Keith stood up, showing that he was uninjured. The new hasty took his arm and examined it, then took a look at his neck. “I think you’re all right,” she confirmed. “You can go home. I’ll walk with you, if you’d like.” 

“No thanks,” Keith told her. “I live pretty close to here.”

She nodded. “Have a nice night.” 

Keith knew he couldn’t keep hanging around this park, and if the hasties had really sent someone to tell his parents, he needed to get home fairly soon. But it would be at least fifteen minutes before they expected him. 

So he stepped onto the slow belt and began to think. 

He hadn’t told the hasties about his insight. He’d overheard conversations in Claire’s unit about where real telepaths came from, and how. They thought it was at least partially genetic. That was why Claire had had twenty-five duty children, and was on track to have a hundred and fifty grandchildren. He had to have the potential to be a real telepath.

There were researchers out there, looking at what made a telepath. Surely there couldn’t be that much of a difference between the borderline telepaths and the real telepaths. The Hive probably hadn’t figured out what yet, but none of the researchers were telepaths; Keith was sure that couldn’t help.

There had to be a way to bridge the gap, if only he knew what it was. 

He tapped in the access code for his parents’ apartment, and as soon as he opened the door, his mother hugged him. “Are you all right?” she asked. “A hasty came and said you were attacked by one of the Pack.” 

Keith shrugged her off. “Yeah, I’m fine. He didn’t hurt me, just kind of startled me. They wanted to reset me, so I told them to talk to Theo.” 

“They probably won’t,” his father, who was doing something on his dataview in the sitting room, interjected. “They wouldn’t reset any of Claire’s children. We could be telepaths, so they can’t risk damaging us.” 

Keith’s mother moved over to sit next to his father. “Come have some dinner,” she said. “We were just about to start when the hasty arrived.” 

Three plates of curry were sitting on the table. Keith picked up one and sat down on a chair facing towards his parents. 

“You’re sure you’re not hurt?” his mother asked again. 

Keith sighed. “I’m fine. They had a medic check me out to make sure I wasn’t physically hurt. I have an appointment with Theo tomorrow, I’ll talk to him then.” Theo was also the therapist for several of Claire’s other relations and some of her team members, and was based out of Claire’s unit, although he had his own apartment on Level 20. 

“All right,” his mother said, seeming only somewhat convinced. They finished eating dinner mostly in silence; Keith took a moment to be grateful that apparently his run-in with one of the Pack had persuaded his parents not to bring up the argument he’d gotten into with his teacher. 

The teacher also seemed to have put it behind them by the next morning. Keith’s day at school was uneventful, and when he left to head up to Claire’s unit for his appointment with Theo, he was in a fairly good mood. He’d had a few insights during the day, mostly classmates who were happy or unhappy with how they’d done on recent assignments. 

Entering Claire’s unit, as always, brought his mood down. She wasn’t visible right now, but she could be anywhere, waiting to lecture him on how the Hive had punished him for his antisocial ways by sending one of the Pack after him. It wasn’t even that she did it that often; it was that she did it unpredictably and it was always horrible. 

But his trip over to Theo’s office was quiet. Maybe Claire was busy with her Hiveist services. She was absurdly devout, and insisted that all her children and grandchildren attend services every Sunday. He knew some of the less favorite members of the family didn’t go, but his parents insisted on his coming with them; being able to stop was one of the things he looked forward to about moving to Teen Level. 

“Hello, Keith,” Theo said brightly. Theo was a young man, relatively recently assigned to Claire’s unit. “How’s the last week been? Anything exciting happen?”

Keith described his week, mostly focusing on the man with the knife. He didn’t mention his insights; while Theo was technically not supposed to tell Claire anything that happened in their appointments, Claire could easily read either of their minds. Keith was hoping to get a new therapist once he moved to Teen Level, one who wouldn’t be accidentally or intentionally feeding his grandmother everything he said. 

Theo nodded, finally. “They did contact me. I’m going to advise against resetting you. For one, it’s been a bit long now; for two, reset has the potential to damage telepathic abilities, so it’s not recommended for potential telepaths except in severe trauma. If you start having more problems later, we can reconsider, but you do seem to be handling this pretty well, Keith. I’m proud of you.”

Keith smiled, despite himself. Theo was one of the nicer adults in his life, even if he was being nice so that Keith would trust him. 

Their appointment was interrupted by the noise of Claire returning from an emergency run, which explained why she hadn’t been waiting for Keith. Theo’s dataview beeped. “Ah, sorry, Keith,” he said. “I need to go talk to someone from the strike team. Is it all right if we finish up a bit early?” 

Keith shrugged. “Sure. I can find my own way out.” 

“Thanks,” Theo said, and headed out. 

Keith hung back a bit on his way out, finding a bench in the park near where the red squirrels had begun living and sitting on it. Someone from Claire’s tactical team might know how to find the telepath researcher he was looking for, if he could just get them to think of it. Perhaps here, he’d be able to get an insight from someone in Claire’s tactical unit and find his way to the next step. 

He let his eyes drift closed and began to try to find flares of strong emotion. For a few minutes, it didn’t feel like he was getting anywhere, and then something blazed in one of the smaller meeting rooms nearby. Keith was inside Phoebe, one of Claire’s administrative team, looking down at a report. “Greta thinks it’s _what_ now? That can’t be it. No, I don’t _care_ about what works for Sapphire-” 

The moment broke, and the insight with it, and Keith was Keith again and sitting on a bench in Claire’s park. Sapphire was a new telepath, he knew. She’d come out of Lottery a few years ago, and she wasn’t much like Claire or Morton. 

He didn’t recognize the name Greta, though. 

Keith headed out of Claire’s unit, hoping to find out who Greta was once he got back to one of the parks not too close to his parents’ apartment. His dataview presented him with no less than fifty Gretas, but only one of them was listed as a Level 1 Researcher. Greta the Level 1 Researcher worked in a Research Unit on Industry 4. It wasn’t anything terribly useful — he couldn’t even be certain that Greta worked with telepathy, although the fact that Phoebe had been reading a report from her meant it was likely. But it was the best chance he had. 

Keith spent the next few weeks trying to practice his ability at school and figure out how to get up to Industry 4. The Industry levels had parks just as the other ones did, although they were smaller than normal ones; nominally it was so workers had somewhere a bit more pleasant to go while they were on break, but it was also because they could be shelters in an emergency. If he could get up there, he could probably get at least a while to try to scan for something useful. 

Kids weren’t normally on the Industry levels except for school trips, though, and he had no idea where on Industry 4 this Research Unit was. 

A month in, he’d resorted to signing up for every single extracurricular trip he could find. A tour of the Industry 38 Burgundy Zone cheese-growing facility, a look at Industry 2’s comfort cat breeding areas over in Blue Zone, the only hydroponics area in the Hive that grew bananas, and more. Shortly thereafter, his teacher pulled him aside after class.

“Keith, I know we’ve had trouble in the past, but… you know you can talk to me about anything, right?” they said quietly, alone in the classroom after everyone else had left. 

Keith stared. He’d gotten no insights from the teacher recently, and had no idea what this was about. 

“I don’t know what you mean,” he tried.

“All the field trips you’ve been taking lately. If it’s just that you’re interested in seeing potential future careers, of course that’s fine, but if there’s something you’re trying to get away from at home… you can talk to me. We can figure something out.” They looked sympathetic, almost sorry for him. 

They were pitying him.

“I’m fine,” Keith snapped. “Don’t worry about it. I need to get home.” He didn’t actually plan on going home; while his parents were slightly more happy with him now that he was “taking school seriously”, he still would rather not spend too long with them. And parks gave him much better opportunities to practice trying to get insights. He wasn’t sure he was actually getting them more frequently, but he seemed to be able to get more information from a single insight the more he tried. 

“Of course,” the teacher said. “If you ever want to talk, I’m here for you.” 

Keith didn’t reply on his way out. 

The trips were mostly uneventful. Keith didn’t really care about the vast majority of the things on them; the care and feeding of small mammals, the inner workings of protein vats, and the making of Hive entertainment were all equally uninteresting. The ever-changing group of schoolmates who came along with him was somewhat interesting, though, and there was always the potential that this trip would be the one where he found out where the Research Unit was. He was focusing on the nighttime ones — he seemed to be more likely to pick up an insight, and to be able to detect them from a greater distance, when there were fewer people around. 

It was a late-night one that finally did it. They’d gone to see some nocturnal birds, found on Industry 4 because they were shy and shouldn’t be disturbed where possible, and on the way back Keith was hit by an insight as if it was a punch. 

He was a researcher, staring at a dataview screen. Keith couldn’t read the data himself, but he could tell what the researcher was thinking. He’d finally found something, it had all been worth it, he’d unlocked part of the telepath secret. It took different forms for different telepaths, but their echo-purging method was part of the ability itself. To become a telepath, you had to already have something like meditation to unite yourself with the Hive-

The insight broke, and Keith tripped over the girl in front of him. 

For the rest of the walk back to his parents’ apartment, he was practically walking on air. Meditation. The secret was meditation, or something similar that would let him communicate with what Claire called the Hive Mind. 

If he could learn to do it himself, maybe that would let him become a full telepath. 

So he started locking himself in his room whenever he got the chance to practice meditating. His parents, who had briefly been so happy that he was “caring about learning”, were now constantly annoyed by his tendency to vanish into his room for extended periods of time. They’d brought Claire over to lecture him a few times, with no success. She was disappointed. She’d always be disappointed. When he got his telepathy to work properly, she’d still be disappointed because it hadn’t been one of his cousins who was a Dutiful Hive Citizen, but at least then he wouldn’t have to hear about it any more because telepaths couldn’t talk to each other, and thinking about that made it easier. 

It was something. 

It stayed like that, all through Teen Level. The other kids on his corridor hated him, but they didn’t matter. He could feel his powers improving. He could hold insights now, for longer than he thought borderline telepaths could manage. He maybe couldn’t break through to full telepathy on his own, but surely Lottery would provide the final boost he needed. 

Keith was sure he was the most confident of everyone on his corridor going into Lottery. Emotions were running high; while he hadn’t been invited to their Carnival festivities, he was managing to pick up on a lot of insights from his room near the community center. They seemed to be having fun, but there was an undertone of fear to it. Everyone had that underlying fear that they’d somehow end up as a Level 99 Sewage Technician. While he was aware it was theoretically possible that Claire would push him into a lower level job than borderline telepathy would otherwise entitle him to, he was pretty sure her Hiveism would force her to let Lottery place him as it would. And if he did make the breakthrough, she’d never be able to even interact with him again. 

His parents called him just before he left for Lottery, as he was finishing up packing. He didn’t recognize it at first; after a particularly ugly argument around Halloween, mostly about Claire as ever, they hadn’t spoken. But he answered, mostly out of curiosity. 

“We wanted to say hello,” his mother said. Keith couldn’t imagine why. Surely Claire had been talking about how awful he was since the Halloween argument.

“Hello,” Keith said, dumping his toothbrush into the bag he would bring along to the test center. 

“And… good luck,” his father added. “I know you haven’t always gotten along with your grandmother,” Keith laughed involuntarily at that, “but… no matter what happens in Lottery, she can make sure you have a good life.” 

Keith looked up. “I don’t need her help,” he snapped. “I’ll take the result Lottery gives me, and I’ll make it on my own.” 

His parents looked at each other. “We understand,” his mother said finally. “We’ll let you go, but… high up, Keith.” 

Keith cut off the call before he could succumb to the temptation to respond. The rest of his final packing was rough, shoving things into bags with far more force than they really needed, and then he was out the door of his Teen Level room and on the way to Lottery. 

He’d had some idea what was coming here. It wasn’t exactly a secret from him how Lottery worked: the hypnotics, the physical capability tests, the mental capacity tests. He could grab insights to help with some of the mental tests, and did. They shuffled him to another center at the end of the first day, but he wasn’t sure whether that was related to his telepathy or not. 

It was on the third day that the headache kicked in, along with a sort of constant droning noise. This was definitely not what Keith had expected, and by the time he was on what was probably his last test for the day, the drone felt like it was stabbing into his brain. 

The man administering the test offered him some painkillers, and he didn’t even think about how it would affect his Lottery results before accepting. The dizzy feeling of sedatives kicking in was almost a welcome relief. 

When he woke up, he was in what looked like a normal enough room. The droning noise was gone, along with the headache it had been aggravating, and a familiar-looking woman was examining a dataview in a nearby chair. He could feel her mind now, as calm as it was. _He should be waking up momentarily. I hope he takes it well._

He mumbled something — even he wasn’t entirely sure what — and she turned to look at him. “Hi, Keith,” she began.

Keith cut her off before she could continue, smiling more widely than he remembered doing in his life. “Hi, Phoebe.”


End file.
